I really wanted to like Daymare: 1998 but it suffers from a lot of issues.

The voice acting is probably the most grating and groan-worthy. So many of the characters come off sounding monotone regardless of what is happening. Normally I can shrug this off but this is happening with Sam who is one of the main characters. The level design is alright but can feel quite annoying due to the constant backtracking. Combat feels okay once you get used to it but sporadic item placement makes the difficulty level a bit of a roller coaster. The way enemies lurch and lock you into some sort of struggle animation gets tiring in a hurry. The game does have a wide array of memorable puzzles but a lot of people will likely have to look up a guide for one or two of them (the Greek puzzle is notorious for this).


I really wouldn't recommend this game to anyone at the current price point of $30. At $10 I might recommend it to a fan of the Resident Evil series. The story was alright but the best part of it was at the end and I had to get through an 8 hour slog for it. I don't see myself replaying it even with the extra content added by H.A.D.E.S. Dead End. I was unable to get the game working on Linux.

TLDR I found The Beast Inside rather bland and I wouldn't recommend it.

---

The story wasn't spectacular feeling quite slow at the beginning. Part of what may have taken me out of the story is the subpar voice acting that came off as verging on monotone and unnatural. Moments that you would expect to be treated with a flourish of emotion instead come off as stunted as if the voice actor was attempting to work without waking someone sleeping in an adjacent room.

The controls were a mixed bag. Being able to move a majority of the objects you come across and throw smaller objects was fairly fun but interacting with boards, drawers, doors, levers, and so on occasionally felt finicky especially when using a controller.

The puzzles are relatively easy to grasp. Increasing the difficulty beyond Adventure does make them moderately more challenging but not to a substantial degree. The difficulty does not effect the availability of resources, damage done to enemies, or lantern fuel usage. What the difficulty does effect is the burn rate of matches, the amount of fuel to fill a lantern, the damage enemies do to you, enemy speed, and timings in the lockpicking mini-game.

The game does have a few redeeming qualities. The environment is visually pleasing with a lot of attention put into the finer details. This includes the notes scattered across various chapters that help flush out the story and add to the atmosphere. Even then some aesthetic choices confused me. One example was having a lighter with Vladimir Lenin on one side and the modern post-Soviet Union coat of arms on the other despite Adam's story taking place in 1979.

---

The Beast Inside's 13 chapters took me about about 8.5 hours to complete. This time could likely be reduced by spending less time exploring or being more proficient with the puzzles. The game does have multiple difficulty levels and endings that could likely add to it's replayability but due to how linear a majority of the game is I don't plan on replaying it. A majority of the ending achievements can be obtained by reloading the checkpoint immediately upon acquiring one of the other achievements.

The game ran fine on Linux with Proton without any alterations but I did notice the occasional texture. There were long load times but this issue isn't unique to Linux.